Tuesday 16 January 2024

Vo(i)ces II - A Review by Cathy Bryant


VO(I)CES II - A REVIEW BY CATHY BRYANT

Vo(i)ces II is an anthology of the winning and commended poems from The Victorina Press Vo(i)ces Poetry Award, and as such is a celebration or get-together of sorts. Like parties, prize anthologies vary enormously, and the reader may or may not want to attend. Fortunately, this is one book to engage with if you possibly can. It’s so beautifully organised, and the people there are so fascinating!

The agreeably broad theme was Life, Death and Beyond. Any poet has experiences that pertain to this, so I expect that there were many entries. The twelve in this volume are all strong and well-written, and interpret the theme in original and different ways. This is an extract from one of the winners, Sarah Leavesley’s ‘Overgrown’:

Night falls, but light refuses
to leave this garden quietly.
Blood moons blossom from knots

in the wood. The trellis bends
beneath the heaviness
of their throbbing petals.

The joint winner, ‘The First of November’ by Virginia Ramos Poseck, is completely different in approach, tone and imagery. The narrator of this poem says of her home that it:

is closed off by the nacre
carapace of a tortoise
I carry it on my shoulders
with its helmet of tapestries and books

The judges praised the musicality of this poem, and I agree with them. I’d happily show you the whole thing! Anyway, these two poems show what an exciting mix there is in the anthology.

The poems are in English and Spanish, which adds another aspect to the book. Comparing the two is fascinating, as one can compare the poetic techniques and effects in both languages. For example, in Mabel Encinas’ poem ‘Perhaps Death Means Coming Back to Your Mother’, we have the line:

Perhaps death is the mother of total consolation

In Spanish, the line is:

Tal vez la muerte es la madre que todo lo consuela

In English the line is beautiful and meaningful, but in Spanish the alliteration of ‘madre’ and ‘muerte’ bring the concepts even closer together.

In Mark Totterdell’s richly evocative poem ‘Sussex’, we have names and nuances that are steeped in English history and culture: flint and barrows, the white horse, the names of pubs.

This must have been a challenge for those who translated this into Spanish. For instance, the line

the long man upped staves and abandoned his hillside

became

el hombre gigante levantaba bastones y abandonaba su ladera

which has different nuances while retaining the sense and power of the English. I particularly liked the translator’s footnote to this poem:

El Star, el George, el Smuggler’s, el Eight bells, el Ox, el Rose Cottage, el Tiger son pubs en Sussex.

Mandy Macdonald’s poem, ‘Three Postcards from Havana’, is as short as the title suggests, but that doesn’t impinge on the strength of the poem at all. Here’s part of the first ‘postcard’:

I know now
the exact spot where a joy
has always lived in the same little room
waiting for you to visit

The other two stanzas deal with absence, and then the return of tranquility. Not easy to pull off in a few lines, but Macdonald manages it with simple beauty. 


I must mention Lee Nash’s ‘The Cygnet’, in which a church singer is asked to perform Saint-Saëns ‘Le Cygne’ at the funeral of a child. This is perhaps the most narrative poem in the book, and one of the most moving. It’s all the more powerful because the singer, narrating the poem, didn’t know the child:

so much grief,
it’s impossible to tell which is Mummy

until I spot her,
the wet slags of her eyes unmistakeable,
her slack weight supported from behind in a vice
by her new man,
a smudge of tattoo fresh on his Adam’s apple –

Here’s the final line, with its pain but a touch of hope, in Spanish:

No Soy Ángel
Pero Tengo Alas

Keith Jarrett’s poem ‘Instructions for My Death’ is a jolt of the unexpected, with powerful imagery and the impression of the narrator (and the poet’s!) strength and imagination. Here’s a delicious extract:

And if anyone asks, tell them
I dreamt of islands on fire
And dirty windows closing
Like bibles in the wind

Another poem I’d like to show in full, because it’s so full!

David Bleiman’s poem ‘Funeral Plan’ is on a similar theme to Jarrett’s, but different in approach. It’s observant and also witty:

There will be a playlist, still to be finalised.
On my current form,
Don’t buy Daddy any more whiskey
Might hit the spot.

In a poem about death, a laugh can be extra rewarding.

‘Uncle Pedro’ by Lester Gómez Medina is filled with Spanish words and concepts, and those whose Spanish is better than mine will find that version the best. In English it still sweeps the reader into Spain:

Two things would break Uncle Pedro:
the scorch of midday rising through his bare feet,

hard as stone from never wearing shoes.
The guarón scouring his throat, flowing into his veins.

This clear portrait is extremely evocative, and I had the rare pleasure of wishing that a poem was longer!

Another Spanish/Hispanic poem is by the indigenous Mexican/Spanish/British poet Marina Sánchez – ‘Choosing Mother’s Last Flowers’. I couldn’t help expecting a poem about dithering over different lovely blooms, but oh no! This is a wonderfully certain poem, using its subject matter to demonstrate the bond between daughter and mother. Sánchez wrote both versions of the poem, and also translated some of the other poems. She is very talented!

Finally (though I haven’t reviewed these in the book order – I’ve hopped about all over the place with playful joy) we come to ‘Death Came Twice’ by Caroline Hickman Vaughan. This is the sort of poem with a bold idea in it, and here it’s used to evoke emotion in the reader. Well, I was a mess. The poem has all the disparate things that one thinks of at a funeral, from the sun biting the windshield to little pink cakes, and what the deceased would think of the funeral. It’s very well done.

I know it’s fashionable to find some negatives too, to show that I’m not a partial and soppy reviewer. There aren’t any, though. The judges’ and translators’ reports are full, and filled with both the knowledge and the love of poetry. The bios of the poets at the end are informative and not constrained to a short sentence or two. The contents page shows in which language the poem was submitted, and to which language it was translated. I found that fascinating.

I think I almost found a fault – I would have liked page numbers on the contents page, so that I could find and reread the poems as quickly as possible. But in every other way I felt honoured to read and review a book of this quality. It’s outstanding, both in content and production. A labour of love and skill.

Here, thankfully, is the sort of prize anthology the poetry lover should make every attempt to read. Like the best parties and celebrations, those involved are intelligent, compassionate, keen observers, and imaginative creators. Come in! Bienvenida!

 (Vo(i)ces II launches February 2023 – available online from www.victorinapress.com or can be ordered from all bookshops) 


CATHY BRYANT



Cathy Bryant has won 32 literary awards and writing competitions, and she co-edited Best of Manchester Poets Volumes 1, 2 and 3. As well as judging prose and poetry comps, she has had four books published: Contains Strong Language and Scenes of a Sexual Nature, Look at All the Women, Erratics, (all poetry) and How to Win Writing Competitions (nonfiction). She lives in Salford with her writer husband.

Monday 15 January 2024

A Note on Caroline Vaughan's 'Death Came Twice' – David Rigsbee


Homer’s Odyssey tells us of Odysseus’ descent to the underworld in Book XI, where he meets his dead mother Anticlia and learns that she died of grief over the absence of her son. In spite of the misery of her departure, Odysseus learns a great deal about what happened in Ithaca during his two decades away. He also feels again the love of his mother, who unburdens herself, having been refreshed by a cup of blood he furnishes to animate her and give her powers of speech, but the moment is temporary, which means under the regime of unforgiving time. He makes three attempts to take her in his arms, but each time he realises that he only embraces a mist. Still, he reemerges from the land of the dead firm in the belief that he was doing the right thing and that his mother, even dead, loved him.


In the sixth book of The Aeneid, Aeneas records his journey to the underworld, where he meets with his dead father Anchises in the Elysian Fields. During the encounter, Anchises offers his son a vision of his future lineage and commends him on his quest to reestablish the Trojan line in Italy and later to become one of the founders of Rome and all that follows that.  His father, being in eternity, can see the future, which is, for the living, the extension of time into a question mark. Virgil presents Aeneas as a leader in search of approval. Before he finds his father, he encounters the deceased figure of Dido, the queen of Carthage, whose love and marriage he has rejected in order to forge on with his god-inspired mission. Dido had responded to his desertion by climbing onto her funeral pyre and impaling herself with a sword. As the hero’s ships pull out, Aeneas can see the smoke rising from the pyre but is unaware of its source. Thus he learns the consequences of his choice of duty over love and witnesses Dido’s bitter withdrawal among the other shades, glimpsing as she recedes, her glaring former husband. Despite this regret, the deep chagrin, and the histrionics of the scorned lover, Aeneas’ matters of the heart must give way to the clarion call of duty.

This is how the passage has been taught, and its dilemma has come down to us more pronounced than settled case law. And yet, how we understand the encounter and its takeaways has changed in our era. In other words, the elegy has moved to the forefront of meaningful utterance by casting off many of the cushioning conventions and illusions that sustained us in the past. I have suggested elsewhere that I take it to be the most important genre in poetry. Why would I make such a claim? Because the elegy situates itself between presence and absence and asks in what way (if any way) can language find meaning where there is no echo. In other words, it brings up the hardest questions. In our era, the elegy now serves up its paradox stripped of civic and religious baggage. We want to honour our parents, for example, but we no longer believe they can give us blessings or commendations from beyond the grave. The great Stanley Kunitz’ central theme was the loss of his father by suicide when he was four. In his landmark poem, 'Father and Son', we see the latter as he bounds through the woods—his selva oscura—to the marsh, where he summons his dead father from the water in which he drowned, desperate for guidance, love, and acknowledgement, only to find that "Among the turtles and the lilies he turned to me/the white ignorant hollow of his face".

The elegy has now evolved into a starker version in which there is no expectation that the dead will somehow appear to bless us as we go on in our lives, and even if they should (or could), such a thing would be met with instinctive disbelief. Caroline Hickman Vaughan, praised for her captivating photographic work, which includes numerous portraits of her father before his death, writes in the remarkable, haunting elegy 'Death Came Twice' of a dreamlike encounter in which her father, now deceased, appears in his own hearse and addresses her. The poem opens deliberately and matter-of-factly, "I never said goodbye to my father", which establishes the strictly confessional mode that will be enlarged by the dreamscape that follows, that is, "my childhood home". We are in one of those conditions where both time and place have lost their usual dimensions, where "I grasped his hand, transporting him to my house/miles away, yet we only took twelve steps". If time and space go haywire, as they can in dreams, logic itself falls apart. There is only the supremacy of the image, in Vaughan’s poem, a tender one, powered by memory and wish-fulfilment:

It was hot for September. Windows down,
father was in back eating petit fours, pink ones,
clouded in the aroma of sweet, sweet sugar.
I stuck my head in the window.
Are they good, Dad? I asked.
He’d always had a sweet tooth.

The mystery of his condition, as if he is in some kind of bardo—and beyond the mystery of how he came to appear in the first place, becomes vivid in the contrast between violence and gentleness that Vaughan offers:

Sun bit the windshield,
slicing through him like a knife.
I saw the door handle on the other side.
Translucent light breathed him
the way moon slides through clouds.

The father emerges from the car, and his daughter helps him, his head bobbing, into the house. They both know he belongs there, and she puts him to bed, where she feels the warmth of his hand. It’s as if in putting him on his deathbed, he is at his most poignantly human ("I need to rest. I’m tired./Where I’m going there will be no more little pink cakes."), having left the hearse where he was sliced by sunlight. Like Odysseus with his mother, the daughter forces the issue by reaching to embrace him, coming up with only the comforter in her arms. He is now nothing, defying any attempt at being revived (there is nothing to revive).  

Someone once said that the loveliest word in the English language is “stay". This poem reminded me of that, and of the wistful question that John Ashbery made when he wrote, "What is there to do but stay?/ And that we cannot do". Vaughan’s poem gives us a brilliant example of the elegy’s power to reckon with the beloved dead and to wring meaning from the air. My mentor, the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, in referencing W. H. Auden, remarked that "if time worships language, then language is greater than time". It gives us a loophole to escape the threat of oblivion. Mallarmé famously wrote that "everything exists to wind up in a book". You may find that cold comfort, but Caroline Vaughan doesn’t. Neither do I. It was in this way that the gods themselves survived.

This poem, and its graceful translation, makes a vivid and fitting contribution to Vo(i)ces II, itself a gem of a collection of new voices, original and translated. Readers will be dazzled by the reach of this volume. 

—David Rigsbee 



David Rigsbee

 

David Rigsbee is author of over 20 books in poetry, non-fiction, translation and criticism. His work has appeared in numerous periodicals, including The American Poetry Review, The Georgia Review,The Iowa ReviewThe New Yorker, Poetry, The Southern Review and Vogue. He is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including a Pushcart Prize, two Fellowships in Literature from The National Endowment for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Humanities (for The American Academy in Rome), The Djerassi Foundation, The Jentel Foundation, and The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, as well an Award from the Academy of American Poets. Currently he works as a manuscript consultant and book reviewer. His latest book is a translation of Dante’s Paradiso (2023).  His Watchman in the Knife Factory:  New and Selected Poems is forthcoming in 2024.

 

A graduate of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill as a Morehead Scholar (B.A. in English and Russian—summa cum laude), he attended the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins (M.A.), Hollins University (M.A.L.S. in philosophy), and the University of Virginia (Ph.D. in English). He lives in the Hudson Valley of New York.

Thursday 19 October 2023

Sofia Petrovna by Lydia Chukovskaya - a review


SOFIA PETROVNA 

by Lydia Chukovskaya

Translated by Aline Werth

Preface by Dr Helen Tilly

Persephone Books

 From the blurb:

"One of the few surviving contemporaneous accounts of the Great Purge, Sofia Petrovna is an intense, brave, brief piece of writing composed secretly in a school notebook in lilac ink during the winter of 1939-40."

"...the genius of the book is the subtle way Sofia Petrovna, and the reader, sees the horror of Stalin's Purges unfolding against a background of complete and utter ordinariness."

The endpaper for Persephone Books' new edition of Sofia Petrovna is taken from a cotton print called 'Construction Site', a cotton print dating from between 1920-1930, probably designed by O Bogoslovskaya


My review:

Sofia Petrovna is a bleak yet totally absorbing novel which lays bare the stark truths of life in 1930s Stalinist Russia. It tells the chilling story of Sofia, a doctor’s widow working as a typist in Leningrad, who is a devoted mother to her engineer son, Kolya. When she loses him to the horror of the Stalinist state she spirals into madness. The prose is lean; it is a story told simply and truthfully, and its power rests in its limited scale and relentless mundanity. There is a certain fluidity to the characters, a blurring at the edges, and as a result the reader understands that they could be any man or any woman – the specific becomes universal.

The novel portrays a system where patriots are arrested on a whim, where those who dare to think for themselves or fall victim to misplaced rumours are destroyed, jailed, or lose what little sanity they have and are driven to suicide. There is a systematic withholding of information – any information – and mothers, sisters, husbands and brothers, queue for days, weeks and moths to try to find out what has happened to their sons, fathers, daughters and wives.

Sofia Petrovna reveals a world where self-deception is necessary to survive – where citizens believe the Party would never misinform them and the state doesn’t arrest those who are innocent. It examines the perils of blind trust, the dangers of denial and the power of government lies. Chukovskaya herself said: ‘[Sofia is] a personification of those who seriously believed that what took place was rational and just. “We don’t imprison people for no reason” Lose that faith and you’re lost; nothing’s left but to hang yourself’. Sadly, her novel is as relevant now as it was when it was first written.


(Published 19th October 2023 by Persephone Books -  www.persephonebooks.co.uk)

Friday 25 August 2023

NATIONAL DISH by Anya Von Bremzen – A Review

 


WHAT THE PUBLISHER SAYS

The acclaimed international food writer and award-winning author of Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking explores the history and future of six of the world's most fascinating and iconic food cultures – France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Mexico, and Turkey.

We all have an idea in our heads about what French food is – or Italian, or Japanese, or Mexican, or . . . But where did those ideas come from? Who decides what makes a national cuisine? Anya von Bremzen, award-winning international food writer, has written definitive cookbooks for Russian, Spanish and Latin American cuisine, and delved into the world's great food traditions as a three-time James-Beard-award-winning food journalist. Now, in National Dish, she embarks on a fascinating journey to the heart of six of the world's most storied food traditions, going high and low, from world-famous chefs to people on the street, in search of how cuisine became connected to place.

Paris is where the whole idea of a country's food as its national heritage was first invented, and so it is where Anya must begin. With an inquisitive eye and unmistakable wit, she ponders the invention of the restaurant, the codification of French food, and the tension between the cosmopolitan and locavore tendencies of the modern eater. From France, she moves quarters to Naples, where she comes face to face with the myth and reality of the pizza in the city where it all began, and takes on the Italian-ness of pasta in the bargain. Next is Tokyo, where Anya and her partner Barry explore the mystique of ramen, rice, and the distance between Japan's future and its past. From there they move to Seville, to search for the essence of Spain's tapas culture and sense of community, and then Oaxaca, where culture wars over the pretty dream and the complex reality of postcolonial cultural integration find expression in the form of maize, mole, and mezcal. In Istanbul, a traditional Ottoman potluck with friends becomes a lens on how a great multi-cultural empire defined its food heritage. Finally, they land back in their beloved home in the melting pot of Jackson Heights, Queens, for a Ukrainian dinner centred around borscht, a meal which has never felt more loaded, or more precious.

A book of astonishing range and connoisseurship, National Dish peels back the layers of myth, commercialisation, and fetishisation around these great world cuisines. In so doing, it brings us to a deep appreciation of how the country makes the food, and the food the country.


MY REVIEW


I was drawn to National Dish because I love food and I love travel memoirs and – with the exception of Mexico – I have spent time in all the countries Anya Von Bremzen writes about here – including Russia.

I was particularly interested in the Tokyo section – I’m an ardent Japanophile and a huge fan of udon and soba noodles – and the joys of konbini stores! – so I found much I could relate to in that chapter.

The whole book was fascinating, and although I already knew a little of the history of some of the dishes discussed and the myths surrounding them, I still found plenty to interest me. The personal travel aspect was equally immersive, and I found much to relate to there as well – reliving time spent in Tokyo and Istanbul in particular.

National Dish is a treat for foodies and those interested in food history, but it’s also much more. The writing is smart and often funny, and effortlessly combines personal experiences with cultural observations. We get to meet so many great characters throughout the book as well.

I have read some negative reviews from those who feel their country has been misrepresented in some way, or that there are too many obvious clichés running through the narrative. The latter may be true in places, but I cannot comment on the former as I simply don’t have enough knowledge of the issues raised. It isn’t a perfect book, but it answers a lot of interesting questions – and I enjoyed it.

 

(National Dish will be published in September 2023 by Pushkin Press. Thanks to Pushkin for the ARC.)


Monday 24 July 2023

Review - As Rich as the King - Abigail Assor

 

WINNER OF THE FRANCOISE SAGAN PRIZE
WINNER OF THE BOOKSTAGRAM PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GONCOURT PRIZE FOR DEBUT NOVEL 

"Sarah is poor, but at least she's French, which allows her to attend Casablanca's elite high school for expats and wealthy locals. It's there that she first lays eyes on Driss. He's older, quiet and not particularly good looking-apart from his eyes . . ."

MY REVIEW:

As Rich as the King is a heady concoction - a dizzy journey through 90s Casablanca, a tale of both sides of the tracks, a city laid bare. Assor’s writing is deliciously sensual, poetic and provocative, and loaded with biting truth.

This is a bittersweet love letter to Casablanca, and the city hums with vivid life – the sounds, sights, tastes and smells are paraded before our eyes on every immersive page.

Sarah’s life has been shaped by cruelty and poverty, and her ambition is to attain a place at the very top of city society – with Driss, who is rumoured to be as rich as the king. She falls for his money, but also for his beautiful eyes, which are the green of thyme simmering in a tagine.

Suffice to say, the ride isn’t smooth, and some barriers can’t be torn down for love in a world ruled by the power of money.

Sarah is an unforgettable character, and although she sometimes makes questionable choices, her relationships with Driss and Casablanca pulled me in and didn’t let me go.

Published by Pushkin Press on 3rd August.


Monday 3 July 2023

My Men by Victoria Kielland

 

From the blurb: 

Seventeen-year-old Brynhild is in a fever - she can't quiet the screaming world inside her. When an intense affair ends brutally, she flees Norway for America at the end of the nineteenth century in search of a new life. Changing her name first to Bella, later to Belle, she is driven from any potential refuge by an unbearable tension that won’t let her keep still. As Belle seeks release in a series of men, her yearning for an all-consuming love erupts into violence.

In this breathtaking novel, Victoria Kielland imagines her way into the tumultuous inner life of the Norwegian woman who became Belle Gunness - America's first known female serial killer. Written in prose of wild, visceral beauty, My Men is a radically empathetic and disquieting portrait of a woman capable of ecstatic love and gruesome cruelty.
 

My Review:

My Men is definitely not a run of the mill crime novel. It is written in a dense literary prose style and is darkly poetic, occasionally chaotic, and at times almost takes the form of a stream of consciousness. The unfocused style suits the depiction of a confused protagonist sliding into madness, but I would imaging it’s a very polarising read. I’m
glad I stuck with it to the end, but I know it won’t be to everyone’s taste. Some readers may find the style too monotonous despite the beauty of the prose, and the tale too unremittingly bleak. 

Thanks to Pushkin Press for another unusual and interesing read. My Men is out July 6th. 


 


Wednesday 7 June 2023

Harper's Bazaar

 


I was sworn to secrecy until the magazine came out, but I can now reveal that I am one of two runners-up in this year's Harper's Bazaar Short Story competition – my story appears in the July/August edition! 
 
To quote the magazine:
 
"Harper’s Bazaar has a long history of publishing original fiction, by writers from Henry James and Virginia Woolf to Ali Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In keeping with this legacy, we are pleased to announce our annual short-story competition, previous winners of which have included Kaliane Bradley, Daisy Johnson and Fatima Bhutto."

Tuesday 6 June 2023

Black River by Nilanjana Roy - Blog Tour Review

 


Black River by Nilanjana Roy


The Blurb:
 

IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO KILL A CHILD…


The Indian village of Teetarpur is a quiet, unremarkable place, until one of its children is found dead, hanging from the branch of a Jamun tree.

In the largely Hindu community, suspicion quickly falls on an itinerant Muslim man, Mansoor.

It’s up to local policeman Sub-Inspector Ombir Singh to uncover the truth. 

With only one assistant officer, and a single working revolver between them, can he bring justice to a grieving father and an angry village―or will the people of Teetarpur demand vengeance instead?


 

My review:

Black River is a compelling blend of crime noir, psychological thriller, state of the nation novel and literary fiction. Roy’s writing is tender, immersive, lyrical and elegant, yet also acutely observational, raw and honest.

The novel perfectly captures the textured layers of this complex nation, a country which has always fascinated me and which I have visited numerous times, yet can't even pretend to understand or truly know. 

Roy explores love, fatherhood, enduring friendships and kindness, but the colour, beauty and light of the sub-continent is darkened by everyday brutality, religious intolerance, divided communities, the corruption of power and violence against women; those “layers of insecurities, prejudices and fears that have come to define India” (Tribune India)

Black River is not a page-turner in the conventional sense, the novel is slower-paced and perhaps more contemplative than a traditional crime novel, but is all the better for that. The characters are vividly drawn and linger in the mind, and there is hope as well as despair. Despite the fact that Munia loses her life in the opening pages of the book, she is so skilfully drawn in those few paragraphs that we already feel we know her well. Her death lies at the heart of the story, yet the other characters’ lives are equally compelling, and the threads of the story are pulled together by the ever-present Yamuna River. The river and the city are characters in themselves, and this immersive sense of place is one of the novel’s great strengths.

A tightly written and engrossing novel which tugs at the heart.


(Thanks to Pushkin Press for the review copy of Black River and for inviting me to take part in the Blog Tour. Black River is out NOW!)

 

 

You can follow the Blog Tour on Twitter:



 

 

 
 


Wednesday 17 May 2023

Review - Henry VIII: The Heart of the Crown by Alison Weir

Review - Henry VIII: The Heart of the Crown by Alison Weir

I rarely read historical fiction set as far back as the Tudor period, but I was curious to read this novel precisely because it was written from Henry VIII’s perspective. I’m not familiar with Alison Weir’s writing, but her reputation precedes her, so I knew the novel would be well-researched and well-written.  

The story is well-traversed, but Weir’s gift for characterisation and her interesting interpretation of events make for an enthralling read. I have always thought of Henry VIII as a manipulative misogynist surrounded by a scheming and dangerous court – which served to make him suspicious, paranoid, and increasingly heavy-handed. This opinion hasn’t altered, but I now feel as though I know him better – a complex man who was an intelligent, articulate scholar, an art lover, a musician, and so much more. 

An engaging read, rich in detail – highly recommended for historical fiction fans.

And I've just seen it's made the Sunday Times Top Ten - well-deserved!

(Thanks to Caitlin Raynor@bookywookydooda at Headline for the review copy)





Wednesday 22 February 2023

Two more advance reviews!

 

Two more advance reviews for  

talk to me about when we were perfect


Thanks to Sarah Linley and Tracy Fells for their kind words. It makes it all worthwhile when readers really 'get' your writing – especially when they are talented authors like these two!


Tracy's Review:

"Talk to me about when we were perfect is a collection of poetry from the multi-talented Amanda Huggins, who seems equally skilled in writing prose, poetry and non-fiction and any new work from this author is something to get excited about. 

 

I relished every single poem in this new collection, looking forward to my daily immersion into Huggins memories and flashbacks to youth. At times these perfect snapshots felt like personal Polaroids, capturing specific moods and moments of adolescence from the author’s life, but also reflect how we all feel when searching to recapture the ache and ecstasy of what it really felt to be young. Her prose is sharp and bittersweet, vivid and visual, often capturing images with a breathless beauty that instantly transports to you a specific place and time that chimes with an experience you share. That’s why her poems are so accessible, they recreate emotions we’ve all known, the good the bad and the shameful. What it feels like to ‘have a crush’ on the older lads hanging round the fairground or outside the chippie. Foolish flirting and falling for the flash talk of strangers. Each is unique, charting the travels of the human heart from first crush to undying devotion and ultimately the pain of separation and ending. Just like the meandering complexity of memories they skip between childhood and becoming an adult, balancing the highs and lows, the joy and pain, of growing up and what it means to leave parts of us behind. I particularly love how Huggins weaves nature into these poems, reminding us that we share this beautiful world with so much more than each other.

 

It’s a rare talent that can create lines such as: “The morning is still holding its breath when I step out across the hotel lawn, and a breakfast party of startled crows complain, all tut and flap and mutter.” ('the man in room seven'), giving us poems that instantly paint a scene and can easily be enjoyed by everyone, and are truly delicious to read aloud.

 

I’ve read a number of collections recently which start with promise but soon feel repetitive and stuck in their themes, but each poem in ‘Talk to me about when we were perfect’ was distinct and memorable, I couldn’t wait to read another, then another. And I can’t wait to read it again. For me this is a collection to keep and cherish.

 

If you enjoy these poems then I highly recommend you check out Huggins’ novellas and story collections too. Her ability to capture mood, setting and emotion shines throughout everything she writes. "

 

Tracy Fells, author of Hairy on the Inside


 

 

 

 


Monday 20 February 2023

Review of Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes

 


I absolutely loved Forbidden Notebook. I read somewhere that this ‘rediscovered’ classic was the ‘female Stoner’, which immediately piqued my interest, as Stoner is a wonderful book too. Forbidden Notebook has also been highly praised by writers such as Annie Ernaux, Jhumpa Lahiri – who wrote the foreword and who quite rightly says that the novel “blazes with significance” – and Elena Ferrante.

I have also enjoyed finding out more about the author herself. Alba de Céspedes was the granddaughter of the first President of Cuba, married at fifteen, was a mother at sixteen, and started writing after her divorce at the age of twenty. She was also jailed twice for her anti-fascist activities in the 1930s.

Forbidden Notebook was originally published in Italian as a magazine serial in 1950, and this edition is a new – and captivating – translation by Ann Goldstein.

The novel is set in post-war Rome, and the narrative is written in the form of a series of secret journal entries from the point of view of Valeria. It gives the reader a piercing insight into women’s changing roles and expectations in the post-war years, as well as exploring class distinctions, mother-daughter/mother-son relationships, and offering a compelling dissection of a 1940s marriage. This intimate novel of domestic discontent is beautifully and elegantly written, haunting, complex, evocative of time and place, and totally engaging. I read it in two sittings, anxious to find out how and if Valeria dares to make fundamental changes to her life. I am still thinking about her…

 

(Thanks to Pushkin Press for the advance review copy. Forbidden Notebook is out on March 2nd)

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